\ 


<3w\  -  yr\  \“o  c- 


Ha  v-  ''  ' 

PKTIOfl  COMMITTEE 
lii  Mean  Section 


fan 

of  %  Skformcb 
at  ijomc  anb  Abroad. 


REV.  WILLIAM  E.  LAMPE,  PH.  D. 

I.  The  Field. 

The  Christian  Church  was  instituted 
that  the  gospel  might  be  made  universal. 
Every  part  of  the  Church,  every  denom¬ 
ination,  every  congregation,  and  every 
individual  is  in  duty  bound  to  take  its 
or  his  part  in  the  evangelization  of  the 
world.  Our  first  duty  is  to  those  next 
to  us  and  right  about  us,  but  our  respon¬ 
sibility  includes  every  person  everywhere 
in  the  world.  We  must,  however,  local¬ 
ize  and  make  definite  our  responsibility, 
and  this  has  been  or  is  being  done  by 
practically  every  denomination.  What 
then  is  the  definite  missionary  responsi¬ 
bility  of  the  Reformed  Church  at  home 
and  abroad? 

The  population  of  the  United  States, 
according  to  the  census  of  1910,  not  in¬ 
cluding  Alaska  or  our  island  possessions, 
is  91,972,266.  Everyone  of  these  persons 
is  entitled  to  the  blessings  and  privileges 
of  Christianity.  The  communicant  merm 


1 


bership  of  all  Christian  Churches  in  the 
United  States,  Protestant  and  Catholic, 
but  omitting  the  Christian  Scientists  and 
Mormons,  is  35,207,444.  There  are  thus 
56,764,822  men,  women  and  children  in 
the  United  States,  who  are  not  full  mem¬ 
bers  of  any  Christian  Church.  These 
are  the  home  missionary  field  of  the 
thirty-five  millions  of  Christian  Church 
members. 

The  communicant  Church  members  are 
22,208,359  Protestants  and  12,999,085 
Roman  and  Greek  Catholics.  Assuming 
that  the  entire  responsibility  for  the  evan¬ 
gelization  of  the  fifty-six  millions  of  peo¬ 
ple  here  in  America,  who  are  not  now  in 
the  Church,  rests  altogether  upon  the 
twenty-two  millions  of  Protestant 
Church  members,  there  are  two  and  a 
half  persons  outside  of  the  Church  to 
every  member  in  the  Protestant  Church. 

On  this  basis  the  300,000  (or  297,829, 
to  be  exact)  communicant  members  of 
the  Reformed  Church  are  responsible  for 
the  evangelization  of  750,000  people  here 
in  the  United  States,  who  are  not  full 
members  of  the  Church.  It  is  a  big  task 
for  the  Reformed  Church  to  bring  three- 
quarters  of  a  million  of  people  into  the 
Church,  but  fortunately  not  all  of  these 
are  altogether  outside  of,  or  in  any  sense 
opposed  to  the  Church,  for  this  number 
includes  our  children  and  relatives  of 
whom  133,056  are  already  baptized,  but 
unconfirmed,  members  of  the  Reformed 
Church.  This  leaves  us  about  650,000 


2 


people  still  to  reach.  It  is  not  the  pur¬ 
pose  to  state  here  where  these  other  650,- 
000,  who  are  the  direct  home  missionary 
responsibility  of  the  Reformed  Church, 
are  to  be  found,  nor  what  is  their  nation¬ 
ality.  The  several  Home  Mission  Boards 
of  this  country  are  now  outlining  their 
policies  and  are  accepting  responsibility 
for  certain  races  or  classes  of  people,  or 
for  certain  parts  of  states  or  other  geo¬ 
graphical  divisions. 

The  Christian  Churches  of  Europe  and 
America  must  evangelize  the  one  thous¬ 
and  millions  of  people  in  Asia  and  Africa 
who  are  still  without  the  gospel.  Every 
country  and  practically  every  large  field 
in  the  non-Christian  world  has  been  en¬ 
tered  by  some  denomination  of  Europe 
or  America,  but  there  are  still  122,000,- 
000  living  in  unoccupied  fields  for  whom 
no  missionary  provision  whatever  has 
yet  been  made.  Each  denomination  ac¬ 
cepts  the  responsibility  for 'the  evangel¬ 
ization  of  the  field  in  which  it  is  now  at 
work.  On  the  basis  of  work  that  is  now 
being  done  and  of  the  strength  of  the 
Christian  forces  in  Christian  lands,  there 
has  been  projected  a  world  survey  of 
missionary  occupation. 

It  is  recognized  that  the  Protestant 
Churches  of  the  United  States  and  Can¬ 
ada  are  responsible  for  the  evangeliza¬ 
tion  of  six  hundred  millions  of  non- 
Christians.  All  of  the  leading  denomina¬ 
tions  of  the  United  States  and  Canada 
have  taken  official  action,  assuming  re- 


3 


sponsibility  for  the  fields  in  which  they 
are  now  at  work  and  of  some  portion  of 
the  fields  as  yet  untouched.  Some  de¬ 
nominations  which  are  strongly  mission¬ 
ary  in  spirit  have  assumed  a  larger  re¬ 
sponsibility  than  their  proportionate 
Church  membership.  This  is  especially 
true  of  the  Presbyterians,  North  and 
South,  and  of  the  Northern  Methodists. 
The  Southern  Presbyterian,  a  denomina¬ 
tion  just  the  size  of  the  Reformed 
Church,  officially  accepts  responsibility 
for  twenty-five  millions.  The  United 
Presbyterians  and  Dutch  Reformed, 
neither  of  which  denominations  has  half 
as  many  members  as  we,  will  attempt  to 
evangelize  fifteen  millions  and  thirteen 
millions  respectively.. 

The  Reformed  Church  in  the  United 
States  in  proportion  to  her  membership 
is  responsible  for  the  evangelization  of  a 
little  more  than  eight  millions  of  people. 
Our  Board  of  Foreign  Missions,  in 
March,  1909,  adopted  a  policy,  accepting 
responsibility  for  the  evangelization  of 
ten  millions  of  people  in  non-Christian 
lands.  This  has  been  ratified  by  the  Gen¬ 
eral  Synod,  all  of  the  District  Synods 
and  many  of  the  Classes  of  the  Church, 
and  has  thus  become  our  Foreign  Mis¬ 
sionary  policy. 

The  ten  millions  of  people  in  foreign 
fields,  for  whom  our  Reformed  Church 
is  responsible,  are  three  and  a  half  mil¬ 
lions  in  North  Japan,  three  and  a  half 


4 


millions  in  Central  China,  in  both  of 
which  countries  we  have  foreign  mis¬ 
sionaries  now  at  work,  and  three  millions 
in  the  Mohammedan  world,  possibly 
Arabia  or  Persia. 


THE  FIELD 


The  missionary  task  before  the  Re¬ 
formed  Church  in  the  United  States  thus 
involves  a  home  missionary  responsibility 
for  750,000  people  in  America,  and  a  for¬ 
eign  missionary  responsibility  for  10,000,- 
000  in  Japan,  China  and  the  Mohamme¬ 
dan  world.  If  we  are  faithful  and  if 
each  other  denomination  reaches  the  peo¬ 
ple  in  its  field  the  saving  blessings  of 
Christianity  may  be  offered  to  every  per¬ 
son  living. 


II.  The  Force. 


There  are  more  than  two  hundred 
thousand  organized  Protestant  churches 
in  the  United  States.  There  are  148,431 
ordained  Protestant  ministers,  or  one  to 
620  of  the  entire  population,  one  to  149 
Protestant  members,  or  one  to  382  per¬ 
sons  who  are  not  yet  members  of  any 
Christian  Church.  In  addition,  there  are 
many  Christian  church  members  who  are 
giving  all  of  their  time  to  the  work  of 
the  Church  in  schools,  hospitals,  orphan¬ 
ages  and  in  other  departments  of  church 
work. 

The  Reformed  Church  has  1,193  min¬ 
isters  and  28  licentiates.  Of  the  min¬ 
isters  1,172  are  in  America  and  21  in 
Japan  and  China.  Most  of  our  min¬ 
isters  are  pastors  of  self-supporting  con¬ 
gregations,  but  some  are  teachers,  ed¬ 
itors  or  secretaries.  There  are  quite  a 
few  in  America  who  are  not  active  pas¬ 
tors,  and  usually  three  or  four  of  our 
twenty-one  abroad  are  at  home  on  fur¬ 
lough.  One  hundred  and  sixty-six  Re¬ 
formed  ministers  are  home  missionaries 
under  the  General  Synod’s  Board  of 
Home  Missions  and  the  Home  Mission 
Boards  of  the  German  Synods  of  the 
Church.  These  166  home  missionaries 
are  in  charge  of  180  missions,  which 
have  a  membership  of  21,539.  We  have 


6 


here  in  America  one  ordained  minister 
to  254  Reformed  Church  members. 

If  we  add  together  our  present  mem¬ 
bership  of  approximately  300,000  and 
the  750,000  people  who  constitute  our 
home  missionary  responsibility,  it  may 
be  said  that  the  parish  of  the  Reformed 
Church  in  the  home  land  is  in  round 
numbers  one  million  souls.  If  it  were 
possible  to  evenly  distribute  the  1,172 
ministers  and  the  1,000,000  people — our 
members  and  those  without  the  Church — 
each  Reformed  minister  would  have  as  a 
parish  854  men,  women  and  children. 
Christian  work  in  all  denominations  in 
America  is  being  retarded  because  of  a 
lack  of  ministers,  and  this  is  especially 
true  in  the  Reformed  Church,  for  while 
throughout  the  country  there  is  one  or¬ 
dained  minister  to  every  620  of  our  pop¬ 
ulation,  we  have  one  minister  to  every 
854  people  in  our  field.  We  need  more 
ministers,  both  to  become  pastors  of  our 
self-supporting  congregations  and  to 
carry  forward  our  home  missionary 
work. 

Every  member  of  our  Church  should 
be  a  home  missionary.  If  every  one  of 
us  did  his  or  her  part  and  led  three 
others  to  Christ  and  into  church  mem¬ 
bership,  our  home  missionary  problem 
would  be  largely  solved.  But  it  is  upon 
our  1,172  ministers  who  reside  in  Amer- 


ica  upon  whom  rests  primarily  the  re¬ 
sponsibility  for  bringing  into  the  Re¬ 
formed  Church  the  750,000  people  who 
constitute  our  home  missionary  responsi¬ 
bility.  This  means  that  every  one  of  our 
ministers  has  still  to  reach  640  men, 
women  and  children.  This  is  the  force 
we  have  in  America  with  which  to  do 
our  home  missionary  work,  to  solve  our 
home  missionary  problems,  and  to  bring 
into  the  Reformed  Church  the  750,000 
non-church  members  for  whom  we  are 
responsible. 

In  foreign  lands,  where  there  are  one 
thousand  millions  of  people  yet  to  be 
reached,  there  are  19,280  Protestant  for¬ 
eign  missionaries  at  work,  of  whom 
5,522  are  ordained  ministers.  The  parish 
of  each  foreign  missionary  is  thus  about 
fifty  thousand  people.  There  is  one  or¬ 
dained  foreign  missionary  to  181,094 
people.  This  proportion  would  mean 
two  ordained  ministers  for  our  whole 
Reformed  Church,  and  four  more  for 
our  entire  home  missionary  work.  There 
are  missionaries’  wives,  native  workers, 
pastors,  evangelists,  Bible  women  and 
earnest  Christians  in  foreign  lands,  just 
as  there  are  elders,  Sunday  School  super¬ 
intendents,  pastors’  wives,  deaconesses 
and  other  workers  in  Christian  lands, 
who  are  of  very  great  help  in  Christian 
work. 


s 


The  Reformed  Church  is  responsible 
for  the  evangelization  of  ten  millions  of 
people  in  foreign  lands.  We  have  made 
beginnings  in  both  Japan  and  China.  No 
provision  whatever  has  yet  been  made 
for  any  of  the  three  millions  of  Moham¬ 
medans,  who  will  not  be  reached  except 
through  our  Church.  Our  foreign  mis¬ 
sionary  forces  are  twenty-one  ordained 
men,  two  laymen  and  fifteen  single  wo¬ 
men  in  Japan  and  China,  a  total  of  thir¬ 
ty-eight  missionaries  for  our  ten  millions 
of  people.  This  is  a  responsibility  of 
263,158  persons  for  each  missionary,  or 
476,190  for  each  one  of  our  ordained 
missionaries. 

Native  Christians  in  foreign  mission 
lands  are  almost  without  exception  active 
propagators  of  their  faith.  They  are 
more  earnest  in  evangelistic  work  than 
the  average  Christian  in  America.  In 
our  fields  in  Japan  and  China  there  are 
2,308  communicant  church  members. 
Nearly  all  of  the  seven  millions  of  people 
in  those  two  countries,  for  whom  we  are 
responsible,  are  still  largely  unevangel¬ 
ized.  There  have  been  many  statements 
by  representative  missionary  conferences, 
of  the  conviction  that  one  missionary 
family  or  an  unmarried  missionary  to 
every  25,000  people  to  be  reached,  is  the 
lowest  reasonable  basis  on  which  to  hope 
to  preach  the  Gospel  to  every  creature, 
so  as  to  make  it  intelligible  to  them  all. 


9 


Twenty-five  thousand  people  to  be 
evangelized,  as  a  result  of  work  which 
one  missionary  may  be  able  to  set  into 
motion,  is  a  tremendous  task,  but  even 
on  that  basis  four  hundred  missionaries 
will  be  required  to  evangelize  the  ten  mil¬ 
lions  of  people  in  Japan,  China  and  the 
Mohammedan  world  for  whom  our  Re¬ 
formed  Church  is  responsible.  We  shall 
need  several  hundred  more  ministers, 
physicians,  nurses,  teachers,  and  other 
men  and  women  to  go  out  as  foreign  mis¬ 
sionaries  of  our  Church  to  become  the 
missionary  force  of  the  Reformed 
Church  in  foreign  lands. 


THE  FORCE 


At  home 
2  Ministers 
to  854 


sons 


21  Ordained/Men 
2  Lay  mi 
15  Single  Women 

1  Minister  to 
476,190 
Persons 


10 


III.  The  Funds. 


It  has  been  frequently  stated  by  com¬ 
petent  authorities  that  the  twenty-two 
millions  of  Protestant  Church  members 
in  America  give  every  year  more  than 
two  hundred  millions  of  dollars  for  local 
church  work  in  America.  This  amount 
provides  for  the  support  of  the  one  hun¬ 
dred  and  fifty  thousand  ordained  Prot¬ 
estant  ministers,  for  the  erection,  im¬ 
provement  and  repair  of  church  build¬ 
ings,  and  for  the  maintenance  of  public 
worship. 

No  one  can  state  the  amount  of  the 
total  gifts  for  benevolence  from  Ameri¬ 
can  Protestants.  Not  all  of  the  money 
for  benevolence  goes  through  Church 
treasuries,  and  even  if  it  did  it  would  be 
very  difficult  to  tabulate,  for  the  several 
denominations  do  not  include  the  same 
items  under  the  head  of  benevolence. 

The  members  of  the  Reformed  Church 
contributed  more  for  congregational  ex¬ 
penses  last  year  than  in  any  other  year 
of  our  history.  The  amount  reached  $1,- 
917,012,  an  average  of  $6.44  per  member. 
This  is  a  lower  average  than  in  other 
denominations  of  which  accurate  statis¬ 
tics  are  available.  But  it  shows  that  the 
Reformed  Church  is  not  a  small  denom¬ 
ination  when  our  three  hundred  thousand 
members  spend  almost  two  million  dol¬ 
lars  a  year  to  keep  up  our  congregational 
work. 


li 


The  benevolent  contributions  of  our 
entire  denomination,  as  reported  to  the 
General  Synod  last  year,  amounted  to 
$569,476.  Of  this  total  sum  the  Board 
of  Foreign  Missions  received  $97,400,  the 
Boards  of  Home  Missions  about  $125,- 
000,  and  the  educational  institutions  of 
the  Church  approximately  $200,000, 
while  the  remainder  was  given  for  other 
benevolent  objects.  It  is  impossible  to 
state  accurately  in  detail  for  what  pur¬ 
poses  the  benevolence  in  America  was 
contributed,  but,  deducting  the  amount 
for  foreign  missions,  there  remains  $472,- 
076  for  benevolence  in  America. 

Adding  together  the  amounts  which 
our  Reformed  Church  spent  for  congre¬ 
gational  expenses — $1,917,012 — and  con¬ 
tributed  for  benevolence  in  America — 
$472,076 — the  total  is  $2,389,088,  which 
was  the  total  amount  spent  by  our  de¬ 
nomination  in  America.  This  is  an  aver¬ 
age  of  $8.02  per  member  spent  here  in 
America.  The  $97,400  given  for  foreign 
missions,  is  an  average  of  33  cents  per 
member.  For  all  Christian  purposes,  as 
represented  by  the  Reformed  Church,  for 
our  local  work  and  for  all  benevolences, 
both  at  home  and  abroad,  the  total 
amount  given  by  our  Reformed  Church 
was  $2,486,488.  Each  member  of  our 
Reformed  Church  thus  gave  on  the  aver¬ 
age  $8.35,  a  little  more  than  two  cents  a 
day  per  member,  for  the  cause  of  Chris¬ 
tianity  at  home  and  abroad. 


12 


The  money  for  foreign  missions  from 
our  Church  was  spent  for  our  work  in 
Japan  and  China  and  for  expenses  here 
in  America.  The  salaries  of  our  thirty- 
eight  missionaries  which  are  paid  entirely 
by  our  Church,  the  expenses  in  connec¬ 
tion  with  more  than  fifty  churches  and 
preaching  places  in  Japan  and  China,  in¬ 
cluding  part  of  all  of  the  salaries  of  fifty 
pastors  and  unordained  preachers,  the 
larger  part  of  the  salaries  of  about  fifty 
teachers  in  our  six  schools,  the  salaries 
of  Bible  women  and  other  evangelistic 
helpers,  and  of  native  helpers  in  the  med¬ 
ical  work,  constitute  the  largest  items  of 
outlay  for  our  foreign  missionary  work. 
In  addition  to  the  item  of  salaries,  thous¬ 
ands  of  dollars  are  required  every  year 
to  help  build  churches  and  chapels,  hos¬ 
pitals,  additional  school  buildings,  resi¬ 
dences  for  missionaries,  etc.  Our  work 
in  the  foreign  field  includes  not  only 
the  work  of  the  church  as  it  is  carried  on 
here  in  America,  but  also  educational 
work  in  all  of  its  phases,  medical  work, 
literary  work,  industrial  work  and  all 
forms  of  charity.  For  all  of  these  pur¬ 
poses  our  Reformed  Church  spent  last 
year  a  little  less  than  $100,000. 

We  have  better  church  buildings  than 
has  the  average  denomination.  Our 
equipment  in  almost  every  line  here  in 
America  is  up  to  the  average.  But  our 
pastors  are  not  as  well  paid  as  are  others, 


13 


and  our  gifts  for  the  current  expenses  of 
the  Church  are  far  below  the  average. 
We  need  to  enlarge  our  giving  for  con¬ 
gregational  expenses.  This  amount 
should  be  increased  immediately  to  two 
million  dollars  a  year. 

We  have  a  great  home  missionary  task 
ahead  of  us,  to  train  up  our  children  and 
lead  them  into  full  Church  membership, 
and  to  reach  650,000  other  people  who 
are  still  altogether  outside  the  Church. 
This  will  necessitate  an  outlay  of  several 
hundred  thousand  dollars  annually.  In¬ 
dividual  congregations  and  Classes  must 
give  sustentation  to  weak  charges  in  their 
vicinity,  and  this  will  require  thousands 
of  dollars  every  year.  Our  educational 
institutions  all  over  the  Church  need  help 
and  our  Reformed  members  should  give 
them  hundreds  of  thousands  of  dollars. 
The  causes  of  beneficiary  education  and 
of  ministerial  relief  must  be  pushed  with 
vigor  and  given  greater  attention  than 
has  hitherto  been  the  case  in  our  Church. 
Caring  for  the  orphans,  training  up  dea¬ 
conesses,  providing  for  the  sick  and  in¬ 
firm  in  hospitals  and  old  folks’  homes  are 
forms  of  Christian  work  in  which  our 
Church  should  have  its  full  part.  All  of 
this  benevolent  work  together  may  re¬ 
quire  as  much  as  one  million  dollars 
every  year. 


14 


THE  FUNDS 


At  Home 
Congregational 
Purposes  $1,91  £  01 2 

Benevolences 
In  America  M72,076 

Total  $2,389,088 
In  America 


For 
Forei] 
Missions 

$<>*400 


We  are  responsible  for  the  evangeliza¬ 
tion  of  ten  millions  of  people  in  Japan, 
China  and  the  Mohammedan  world.  To 
accomplish  this  there  must  be  a  force  of 
perhaps  four  hundred  foreign  mission¬ 
aries  to  be  sent  out  by  our  Church,  sev¬ 
eral  thousand  native  pastors,  evangelists, 
Bible  women,  teachers,  physicians, 
nurses,  etc.  We  must  also  help  in  the 
erection  of  a  number  of  buildings  of  dif¬ 
ferent  kinds,  churches,  chapels,  schools, 
hospitals,  residences,  etc.  Abundant  ex¬ 
perience,  based  on  the  work  now  carried 
on  by  our  own  and  other  denominations 
throughout  the  world,  shows  clearly  that 


15 


to  evangelize  the  ten  millions  of  people 
in  our  field  will  require  about  one  mil¬ 
lion  dollars  every  year. 

It  thus  becomes  evident  that  to  carry 
on  the  work  of  the  Reformed  Church  our 
members  must  annually  give  about  four 
million  dollars,  which  is  an  average  of 
$13.46,  or  less  than  four  cents  per  mem¬ 
ber  a  day.  Of  the  total  amount  two  mil¬ 
lion  dollars  will  be  needed  for  congrega¬ 
tional  expenses,  one  million  for  benevo¬ 
lence  in  America,  and  one  million  for 
foreign  missions — 50  per  cent,  for  con¬ 
gregational  expenses,  25  per  cent,  for 
benevolence  in  America,  and  25  per  cent, 
for  foreign  missions. 


Boarh  of  i^omr  iUiBBiottB 
Boarh  of  iFomgtt  iHtBBtmtfi 
Brformrh  Olljurrtj  tn  tlfr  Buttrii  &tat*B 
Jfftftrrtttff  atth  Barr  &trrriB 
{JljUalirlpljta,  JJa. 


* 


16 


